Would you believe that Haitian President
Jean Paul Aristide was “taken for a ride” because he’d demanded $21.7
billion in reparations restitution from the French for his country? Was
Aristide’s February 29, 2004 departure from Haiti a coup d'état
orchestrated by the U.S. and France because he wanted payback?

The reparations Aristide seeks remains an
issue for both the U.S. and French governments, in reverse perceptions of
justice. Blacks who suffered two centuries of free labor in the U.S. want
payment, while the Haitians who overthrew colonial masters want pay-back.
The tone corporate media attaches to today’s situation is propaganda
describing Aristide as “corrupt” and that his “people suffered” under his
presidency in Haiti. Much as is done toward Black Reparations in the
U.S., U.S. and Franco government officials dismiss Aristide’s stand
against Haiti’s
slavery-era masters and demand for return of the island’s stolen wealth.

Explored by Columbus on Dec.
6, 1492, Haiti soon became the French colony of Saint-Dominique and a
leading sugarcane producer dependent on slaves. In 1791, a insurrection
among Haiti’s 480,000 slaves led to
it becoming the first black slave population to rise up and conquer French
colonists. During the 18th century, France’s
Haiti was one of the most
brutally-efficient slave colonies ever and its most valuable colonial
possession. Haiti was an important port of call for slave ships to
colonies in the Americas
and the origin of two-thirds of Europe's total volume of tropical produce.

The Revolution wrecked Haiti’s economy
because it challenged the world as it was then. Slavery was the heart of
a thriving system of merchant capitalism that profited Europe, devastated
Africa, and propelled the expansion of the Americas. Independent Haiti
had few friends. All the world's powers sided with France
against the self-proclaimed BlackRepublic which declared itself a
haven for runaway slaves. Hemmed in by slave colonies, Haiti had only one
non-colonized neighbor, the slaveholding United States; which refused to
recognize Haiti’s independence for decades.

After the revolution was successful in
1804; Haiti's leaders were desperate for recognition, since the island’s
only source of revenue was the sugar, coffee, cotton and other tropical
produce it had to sell. In 1825, under threat of another in a series of
French invasions, and restoration of slavery, Haitian officials signed a
document, the beginning of the end of any hope of autonomy. France’s king
agreed to recognize Haiti's independence only if the new republic paid
France an indemnity of 150 million francs and reduced its import and
export taxes by half. The “debt” Haiti recognized was incurred by slaves
when they deprived French owners not only of land and equipment but of
human “property”. The terms of the edit were non-negotiable, and to
impress the seriousness of the situation, France delivered the demands by
12 warships armed with 500 canons.

To make matters worse, the French
anticipated and planned for Haiti to secure a loan to pay the first
installment on the indemnity. That’s when the usury began. Haiti was
forced to borrow the 30 million francs from a French bank that then
deducted management fees from the face value of the loan and charged
interest rates so exorbitant that after payment was completed, Haiti was
still 6 million francs short. The Haitians were taken to the cleaners.
The indemnity was 55 million francs more than was needed to restore the
793 sugar plantations, 3,117 coffee estates and 3,906 indigo, cotton and
other crop plantations destroyed during the war. By contrast, when it
became clear France would no longer be in a position to capitalize on
further westward expansion in the Western hemisphere, they agreed to sell
the Louisiana Territory (an area 74 times the surface area of Haiti) to
the U.S. for 60 million francs - less than half Haiti’s indemnity.

The impact of the debt repayments - which
continued until after World War Two - was devastating. It turned a
country whose revenues and outflows had been balanced up to then into a
nation burdened with debt and trapped in financial obligations that could
never be satisfied. Haiti did not finish paying its indemnity debt until
1947. European “justice” imposed an indemnity on the victorious slaves
that was equivalent to making them pay with money what they’d already paid
with their blood. The “debt” is unquestionably the reason Haiti is “the
poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Jean Bertrand Aristide first
made the demand for $21 billion from the French on the bicentenary of the
death of independence hero Toussaint Louverture.

After
the cycle of debt, dependency and foreign domination that’s torn Haiti
apart for 200 years, isn’t it worthwhile to question American officials,
especially U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, about America’s past,
and current, role in helping to keep Haiti impoverished? When it comes to
the issue of reparations justice, the US/Franco intervention in Haiti is
just the latest chapter in blacks of African ancestry being taken for a
ride. When will justice prevail and continuing bilking of blacks in the
Americas end?